“Wait,” I said. “Are you able to get an atmospheric pressure reading?”
“Give me two minutes.”
Before I could object, Ben had powered up the Valkyries, igniting the kelp strands in front of us. Within seconds we were rising through clear water, the lasers evaporating plants and barbequing fish as they burned a hole through the soil-covered surface.
Ming was livid. “You maniac. Look what you did!”
“What did you want me to do? We needed a place to surface, now we have one. No one needs to know.”
“That is not the point. We did not journey into this pristine environment to destroy a fifteen-million-year-old ecosystem.”
“Don’t go all PETA on me, Ming. So I fried a few fish. Big deal. The dead will be eaten, and the algae will grow back.”
Before she could retort, the Barracuda’s bow punched through the smoldering mattress of vegetation. The sub leveled out in the midst of a midnight fog swirling beneath a cloudlike ceiling of ice at least twenty stories high.
While Ben swore at the ice sheet and Ming swore at Ben, I used my night-vision binoculars to survey our new surroundings.
We were surrounded by a thick, undulating bed of vegetation. To the north the surface layer progressively expanded into a dark, lumpy moss and what appeared to be tens of thousands of snakes. After adjusting my focus, I realized they were roots growing out of the marsh. With no sun to reach for, the growths had twisted horizontally into thick briar patches, nourished solely by the chemosynthetic-rich soil.
Farther out still, I saw the dark silhouette of a rise.
Ben and Ming were still arguing in my headphones, distracting my thoughts. “Enough,” I yelled, silencing the voices in my ears. “Ben, I thought the plateau that divides the lake’s northern and southern basin was underwater.”
“Depth is seven hundred feet, according to Vostok Command. Why?”
“Because there’s a ridge out there preventing us from entering the northern basin, and it’s definitely not submerged.”
My two shipmates located their binoculars and panned the northern horizon.
Ming didn’t seem too surprised. “At least three nations studying Vostok claim the lake has islands and tides. Perhaps these radar scans were completed at low tide and confused the partially submerged ridge for islands.”
Ben angrily shoved his binoculars back in their pouch. “Maybe Vostok does have tides, or maybe somebody just screwed up. If a high tide is coming, it’d better get here soon. Otherwise we have about nine and a half hours to figure out how to cross a land bridge in a submersible.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “The external air pressure has dropped again, this time from thirty-nine hundred psi to just over four hundred. That’s a massive pressure differential.”
Ming theorized. “The geothermal vents heated the water. The warmth melted the ice, which carved out the bottom of the ice sheet, creating more air space. That space filled with compressed oxygen and nitrogen particles, which are perpetually being squeezed to the bottom of the glacier. It is this atmosphere that is counteracting Vostok’s external pressure.”
“That doesn’t explain the magnetic interference that’s scrambling your cameras. Ben, as much as I’d like to believe in the tides, I think you’d better take us deep. Maybe we can find an underwater passage that leads into the northern basin.”
The Barracuda slipped beneath the algae mat and descended.
Dancing in and out of our exterior lights was bio-diversity on a scale I had never seen before. There was the kelp forest — a million inverted olive-brown tentacles swaying with the current. Then there were the kelp-feeders — anchovies and mollusks, along with countless other dark creatures. Finally, there were the packs of carnivore fish, their presence attracting a few rogue predators.
Perhaps it was to keep Ming on his good side, but Ben made a special effort to maneuver the sub so as not to disturb the wildlife. At one point he even diverted from our descent so that Ming could collect samples of kelp and several anchovies using a vacuum tube.
Having acquired living specimens seemed to lighten Dr. Liao’s soured demeanor.
It took Ben twenty minutes to dive beyond the olive-brown tentacles of algae into open water.
For a long moment we hovered, gazing at the abyss. Particles of brown soot and debris floated past our lights like dark, mesmerizing snowflakes. My eyelids grew heavy. I yearned for sleep.
“Guys, I’m wiped. Maybe we ought to sleep in shifts.”
“Go on, Doc. I just popped a caffeine pill.”
“Get some rest, Zachary. I will monitor the sonar array.”
The Barracuda leaped ahead, jumping from three knots to twenty within seconds. Brown flakes flew past the acrylic glass like a dirty blizzard.
Settling back in my seat, I closed my eyes…
13
“This anomaly is so large that it cannot be the product of a daily change in the magnetic field.”
PING.
PING… PING… PING.
The acoustic disturbance jump-started my heart like a bad alarm clock. Locating my headset, I spoke into the mouthpiece, the soothing calm of my catnap eradicated. “What’s wrong? Ben, why are you pinging?”
“We’ve reached the southern face of the ridge. You were right; the plateau runs straight up to the surface. Ming suggested we go active on sonar to see if we could find a breach in this underwater gauntlet.”
I stole a quick glance at my control console. The depth gauge read 817 feet. Using my night glasses, I glanced out to starboard. We were heading west, moving parallel to an imposing cliff face covered in algae.
“How much of the plateau have you surveyed on sonar?”
“Only about four miles, but we’re pinging every three hundred feet. All this algae deadens the sound.”
Ming set off another ping. I switched my headphones to SONAR, following the rippling sound wave on my monitor as it reflected off the plateau, my eyes catching a blip dancing in and out along the right edge of my screen.
“There’s something registering on our acoustic periphery.”
“Tell me it’s an underground river.”
“Sorry. It’s a biologic. Not a small one, either.”
“How big?” Ming asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe ten meters. It’s about a kilometer to the west, hovering along the face of the plateau close to the surface. But stay calm. For all we know, it could be a giant sea cow. They were pretty common during the Miocene.”
“A sea cow? How do you know that? Did you hear it mooing?”
“Take it easy, Ben. The way it’s moving along the rock face suggests it’s a plant-eater.”
Ben stared hard at his sonar screen. “Ming, ping again.”
The gong raced out in all directions, the reflection appearing on our monitors. A bright line swept clockwise across the grid, illuminating the blip to the west — along with a second object rising slowly away from the bottom a thousand yards south of our position.
Oh, hell.
“Zachary?”
“Yes, Ming, I saw it. Ben, bring us as close to the plateau as you can, then ascend the sub so that we’re on an intercept course with that first blip. Ming, no more pings.”
“That second blip — it’s a predator, isn’t it?”
“I think so.”
“How big?”